The Ultimate Tool To Test & Speed Up Your Webpage
Webpage speed test is The Ultimate Tool To Test & Speed Up Your Webpage & although very similar to Yslow it does offer far more options & much clearer reports.
I doubt there are many of us that have not tried either Google’s Page Speed or Yahoo’s Yslow, in an attempt to try and squeeze a little more speed out of our webpages & probably like me there are those that end up sitting there scratching their heads & wondering why the changes you make do not seem to register or produce any better results! Add to this the fact that explanations of the various factors are simply not put in laymans terms & it is easy to understand why many of us give it up as a bad job!
However there is another option you can try which is totally free of charge, does not require the installation of any particular browser & is a far superior tool in terms of ease of use & quality of reports. WebPageTest.org is a pure pleasure to use, it’s setup is very straight forward (I will walk you through that in a moment) & you have options to test from different locations plus the option to run multiple concurrent tests (very handy on a busy server).
Web Page Test Setup
After clicking the link, you will access the WebPageTest.org home page, simply click the “New Test” button & follow the 5 steps detailed below;
Step 1. Enter your URL
Step 2. Choose a location..?
NOTE: This is not asking for your location, it requires a location to test from & in order to get the most realistic results & accurate results, I would choose a location as far away from your server location as possible.
Step 3. Requires you to choose what configuration of browser & Internet connection you would like to use for the test.
NOTE: Not all locations offer the same cofiguration options, so depending on the location you chose in step 2, you may find there are no configuration settings available to choose from.
Step 4. Choose your test options
NOTE: Choosing 3 runs will give a pretty good idea of how your site is performing & at the same time does not take that long to complete. You may select up to a maximum of 10 runs, but please bear in mind that this will take considerably longer to complete.
Step 5 & the final step is simply to click the submit button & then sit back and wait for a few minutes. The tests will run based on the configurations you chose & when complete the results will appear on your screen, as shown below;
Test Results
This test result clearly shows that caching & compression (two of the most important factors) are working perfectly, also the initial load & repeat load times are excellent. But if you want more detail just click the link above the words “Test Results”
This page will show you any areas of concern that may be affecting your webpage speed test results, highlighted by either a yellow exclamation or a red cross, depending on the severity of the problem & in my case I clearly have an issue with 3 images that are failing to compress for some reason or another. As for the CDN (content delivery network) I hardly think the additional running cost would be appropraite for a site of this size & as my current speed is very good then a CDN is just something I may consider in the future.
Ok so give WebPageTest.org a try and let us know how you get on, I am certain that you will find this far better than Google’s Page Speed or Yahoo’s Yslow as any changes you make will show as soon as you run a fresh test.
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Posted by Steve Nickson
on Jul 17 2011. Filed under Blog Tips.
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